The present invention relates to an optical tomography imaging system which irradiates a measurement target with a light beam to capture a tomographic image of the measurement target with a reflected light beam, a contact area detecting method and an image processing method using the contact area detecting method, and an optical tomographic image obtaining method.
Optical tomography imaging systems utilizing optical coherence tomography (OCT) are one way to obtain a sectional image without cutting into a measurement target such as living tissues.
OCT is a type of optical interferometry in which a light beam emitted from a light source is split into two beams, a measuring light beam and a reference light beam, to utilize the fact that optical interference is detected only when the light path length of the measuring light beam and the light path length of the reference light beam match within the coherence length of the light source.
An example of optical tomography imaging systems utilizing OCT is disclosed in JP 2000-131222 A. This optical tomography imaging system has a light source, a first optical coupler section, which splits a light beam emitted from the light source into a measuring light beam and a reference light beam, a measurement section, which irradiates a measurement target with the measuring light beam to detect a reflected light beam, a second optical coupler section, which causes the reflected light beam to interfere with the reference light beam which has been guided along the same light path length as the measuring light beam, and a computing section which detects a tomographic image from a result of the interference.
The optical tomography imaging system according to JP 2000-131222 A obtains a two-dimensional tomographic image by connecting an optical fiber of the measurement section rotatably with the use of a rotary joint and capturing tomographic images while rotating the optical fiber. That is, the two-dimensional image is obtained as capturing tomographic images at a plurality of points around a measurement point by rotating the optical fiber.